The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-05-19

conflict, He says; my grace shall be suiii-
cent for you, You shall not be tempted
above that you are are able to bear" There
fore, with all your temptations, go, as these
disciples did, and tell Jesus,
Again; | commend the behavior OF the
disciples to all those who are abused and
slandered and pers acuted When Herod put
John to DEATH the disciples knew that their
own heads Were not safe And do you know
that every John has Herod! There are
persons in life who do nos wish you very
well. ourmisfortunes are honeycombs to
them, Through their teeth they hiss at
you, misnterpret your motives, and would be
glad to see you upset, No man gets Through
life without having apummelling, Some Sian
comes aIter you, horned ana tusked ana
hoofed, to gore and trample you; and what
are You to dos tell You plainly that all who
serve Christ must suffer persecution, 1t is
the worst sign in the world for you to be able
to say: II haven't an enemy in the world"
"A woe is pronounced in the Bible against ths
one of whom everybody speaks we'll II you
are at peace with all the world, and every
body likes you and approves your work, it il
because you are an idler in the Lords vine
yard, and are not doing your duty.
All those who have served Christ, however
eminent, have been maltreated ut some stage
of their experience. You know 1t was so III
the time of George Whiteteld, when he stood
and invited men into the kingdom of God:
What did the learned DR.. johnson say OF
him! He pronounced him miserable mounte.
bank. How was it when Robert Hall stood
and spoke as scarcely any uninspired man
ever did speak of the glories of Heaven'
and as he stood Sabbath after Sabbath
preaching on these themes his face kindled
with the glory. John Foster Christian
man, said of this man: "Rebert Hall is only
acting, and the smile on his face is a refec-
ton of his own vanty.n John Wesley turned
all England upside down with Christian re-
form, and yet the punsters were after him,
and the meanest jokes in England were per-
petrated about John Wesley What is true
of the pulpit is true of the pew; it is true of
the street, it is true of the shop, and the store
All who will live godly in Christ Jesus must
suffer persecution.
And set it down as the very worst sign in
all your Christian experience if you are, any
of you, at peace with all the world The re-
ligion of Christ is war 1t is II challenge to
1.-The world, the flesh and the DEVIL" and II
you will buckle on the whole armor of God.
you will find great host disputing your patti
between this and heaven But what are you
to do when you are assaulted and slandered
and abused, as | suppose nearly all of you
have been in your life Go out and huntup
the slanderer! Oh no, silly man! While you
are explaining away falsehood in one place,
fifty people will just have heard of it in other
places.
l counsel you to another course. While
you are not to omit any opportunity OF set
ting yourselves right want to tell you this
morning of one who had the hardest things
said about Him, whose Sobriety was disputed,
whose mission was secuted, whose compan-
ionship was denounced, who was pursued as
babe and spit upon as a man, who was
howled at after He was dead | will have
you go unto Him with your bruised soul in
some humble, child prayer, saying: 81 see
Thy wounds-wounds of head, wounds OF
feet, wounds of heart. Now, look at my
wounds, and see what ! have suffered, and
through what battles | am going and Ell.
treat Thee, by those wounds of Thine, sym
pathize with me And he will sympathiae,
and He will help. Go and tell Jesus,
Again ! commend tine behavior of the
disciples to all who may have been bereavcd
How many in garb of mourning! # you could
stand at this point where | am standing and
look off upon this audience, how many signals
of sorrow you would behold. God has His
own way of taking apart family. We must
get out of the way for coming generations.
We must get off the stage that others may
come on, and for this reason there is a long
procession reaching down all the time into
the valley of shadows.
This emigration from time into eternity is
so vast an enterprise, that we cannot under
stand it. Every hour we hear the clang of
the sepulchral gate The sod must be broken.
The ground must be ploughed for resurrec-
ton harvest. Eternity must be peop!ed
The dust must press our eyelids. at is APP
pointed unto all men once to die" This emf
grafton from time into eternity keeps three
fourths of the families of the earth in desola-
ton The air is rent with farewes, and the
black tasselled vehicles of death rumble
through every street.
The body of the child that was folded SO
closely to the mothers heart is put away in
the cold and the darkness. The laughter
freezes to the girls lip, and the rose scatters
The boy in the harvest field of Shunam says:
"My head my head !" and they carry him
home to die on the lap of his mother. Widow
hood stands with tragedies of woe struck into
the pallor of the cheek. Orphanage cries in
vain for father and mother. Oh, the grave
is cruel With teeth of stone, it clutches for
its prey. Between the closing gates of the
crushed. Is there any earthly solace
None. We come to the obsequies.
we sit with the grief-stricken, we talk pa
thetically to their soul; but soon the obsequies
have passed, the carriages have left US at the
door, the friends who stayed for few days
are gone, and the heart sits in desolation,
listening for the little feet that will never
again patter through the hall, or looking for
the entrance of those who will never come
again-sghing into the darkness ever and
anon coming across some book or garment or
little shoe or picture, that arouses former as
soclatlon, almost killing the heart
Long days and nights of suffering that wear
out the spirit, and expunge the bright lines of
life, and give haggardneSs to the face, and
draw the flesh tight down over the cheek bone,
and draw dark lines under the sunken eve,
and the hand is tremulouS, and the voice is
husky and uncertain, and the grief is wear
ing: grinding, accommodating, exhausting
Now, what are such to dol Are they merely
to look up into bra zen and IMPLYING heaven!
Ara they To WALL hlaStaj boa+h I'D 1f
stream, unsheltered by overarching treal
HAS God turned us out on the barren common
to dies Oh, no! no! MOI He has not He
comes with sympathy and kindness and love
He understands all our grief He sees the
height, and the depth, and the length, and
the breadth of it. He is the only one that
can fully sympathze. Go and tell Jesus
Sometimes when we have trouble we go to
our friends and we explain it. and they
try to sympathize; but they do not
understand it. They cannot understand it.
But Christ sees all over it, and all through it.
| He not only counts the tears and records the
| groans, but before the tears started, before
| the groans began, Christ saw the Utmost
hiding place of your sorrow; and He takes it,
and He weighs it, and He measures it, and
| he pities it with an all-absorbing pity. Bone
Of our bone. Flesh of our flesh Heart of
our heart. Sorrow of our sorrow.
As long as He remembers Lazaruss grave
| He will stand by you in the cemetery. AS
long as He remembers His own heart-break,
He will stand by you in the laceration of your
affections. When He forgets the foot-sore
way, the sleepess nights, the weary body,
the exhausted mind, the awful cross, the
solemn grave, then He will forget you, but
not until then.
Often when we were in trouble we sent for
our. friends; but they were far away, they
could not get to us. We wrote to them
Come right away" or telegraphed: Take
the next train" They came at last, yet were
great while in coming or perhaps were too
late. But Christ is always near-before you,
behind YOU within you. No mother ever threw
ner arms arounu her child with such warmth
and ecstasy of affection as Christ has shown to-
wards you. Close at hand-nearer than the
staff upon which you lean, nearer than the
CUP you put to your lip, nearer than the
handkerchief with which you wipe away your
tears-l preach him an ever-present. all sym
pathizing, compassionate Jesus How can
you stay away one moment from Him with
/ your griefs? Go now. Go and tell Jesus
1t is often that our friends have no power
to relieve us. They would very much like to
doit; but they cannot disentangle orr finances,
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